Trump on whether he has to uphold the Constitution: ‘I don’t know’

President Donald Trump argued in an interview with NBC News’ “Meet the Press” that fulfilling his ambitious campaign promise to rapidly carry out mass deportations may take precedence over giving immigrants the right to due process under the Constitution, as required by courts.

A central part of Trump’s agenda has been implementing the “largest deportation operation” in U.S. history, as he vowed during the 2024 campaign. In service of that goal, his administration has pressed the courts to allow the immediate removal of immigrants it accuses of being members of a Venezuelan gang, without giving them a chance to plead their case before a judge.

In an interview last month with “Meet the Press,” Secretary of State Marco Rubio said, “Yes, of course,” when asked whether every person in the United States is entitled to due process.

Trump, however, isn’t so sure.

“I don’t know. I’m not, I’m not a lawyer. I don’t know,” Trump replied when asked by “Meet the Press” moderator Kristen Welker whether he agreed with Rubio. His comments came during a wide-ranging interview at his Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida, which aired Sunday.

The Constitution’s Fifth Amendment says “no person” shall be “deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law”; it does not say that person must be a U.S. citizen, and the Supreme Court has long recognized that noncitizens have certain basic rights. Trump has also said that while “we always have to obey the laws,” he would like to see some “homegrown criminals” sent to El Salvador as well, a proposal that was widely panned by legal experts.

When Welker tried to point out what the Fifth Amendment said, Trump suggested that such a process would slow him down too much.

“I don’t know. It seems — it might say that, but if you’re talking about that, then we’d have to have a million or 2 million or 3 million trials,” he said. “We have thousands of people that are — some murderers and some drug dealers and some of the worst people on Earth.”

“I was elected to get them the hell out of here, and the courts are holding me from doing it,” he added.

“But even given those numbers that you’re talking about, don’t you need to uphold the Constitution of the United States as president?” Welker asked.

“I don’t know,” Trump replied. “I have to respond by saying, again, I have brilliant lawyers that work for me, and they are going to obviously follow what the Supreme Court said.”

The Supreme Court has already made it clear to the Trump administration in three different recent decisions that it has to allow basic due process rights for immigrants based on the long-standing understanding of the laws.

That would not require full trials, as Trump suggested. What it would require is the chance to appear before an immigration judge. Such judges are not part of the judicial branch; they are employees of the Justice Department. Administration officials have spoken out against such constraints, leading to allegations that they have defied instructions from lower court judges and even the Supreme Court.

One major point of contention has been the administration’s novel invocation of a 1798 law, the Alien Enemies Act, to quickly deport alleged members of the Venezuelan gang Tren de Aragua. The law has previously been used only during times of war, but the U.S. government is claiming that the gang is effectively an invading force connected to the Venezuelan government in order to use the law’s power to remove people without going through the processes laid out in other laws, like the Immigration and Nationality Act. That effort, though, is facing stiff opposition.

Men facing deportation under the law said they had no chance to contest whether they are even members of the gang, leading to two different Supreme Court decisions that blocked the administration from sending them to prison in El Salvador without due process. One decision came early on the morning of April 19, hours after men had been loaded onto buses and were seen heading toward an airport in Texas.

Another high-profile case has involved Kilmar Abrego Garcia, a Salvadoran man who was living in Maryland with his wife and three children when he was deported to El Salvador. The Trump administration accused him of being a member of the MS-13 gang — which Abrego Garcia’s wife and attorney deny — in its justification for deporting him to his home country, even though an immigration judge’s order from 2019 barred him from being sent there.

The administration has admitted that it was an “administrative error” to deport him, and the Supreme Court ordered that the government “facilitate” his return to the United States so that he can plead his case. The administration appears to have made little effort to do so and has insisted it doesn’t have the power to force El Salvador to do so.

“I don’t know,” Trump replied when asked whether anyone in his administration is in touch with the government of El Salvador to return Abrego Garcia. “You’d have to ask the attorney general that question.”

It is not disputed that Abrego Garcia entered the U.S. illegally or that the government could potentially deport him.

Trump insisted he was not defying the Supreme Court.

“No. I’m relying on the attorney general of the United States, Pam Bondi, who’s very capable, doing a great job. Because I’m not involved in the legality or the illegality,” he said. “I have lawyers to do that and that’s why I have a great DOJ.”

Trump also said he may go back to the Supreme Court to seek clarification on what the justices meant by the word “facilitate.”

“We may do that. I was asking about that. We may do that,” he said.

The administration lost in lower courts over its response to the Supreme Court’s decision in the Abrego Garcia case but has yet to ask the justices to intervene for a second time.

The Trump administration has other options to speed up the deportation process — for example, by asking Congress to amend immigration laws and expand resources for immigration judges so that a backlog of cases can be processed more quickly. The administration, however, has fired some immigration judges.

Welker also noted that some Americans have been mistakenly detained by immigration authorities under Trump’s administration and asked whether lawful residents need to start carrying paperwork when they leave home, in order to prove their status.

“I don’t think that’ll be necessary,” Trump said. He then shifted, speaking about people who “have been killed, maimed, badly hurt by illegal immigrants that came over that are from prisons and from jails and from mental institutions.”

During his interview Friday, Trump repeatedly invoked his lawyers, saying he was heeding their instructions to make sure he was following the law. In addition to immigration, Trump addressed his threat to take away the tax-exempt status of Harvard University.

The Ivy League school recently sued the federal government over its decision to freeze more than $2 billion in funding. The administration claimed the university was refusing to take actions aimed at ending antisemitism on campus; Harvard said they were “unprecedented” demands to police the viewpoints of students, faculty and staff members.

Welker noted to Trump that federal law prohibits a president from directing the Internal Revenue Service to investigate and rescind an organization’s status.

“Do you think you’re following the law?” Welker asked.

“I’m going to just follow what the lawyers say,” Trump replied. “They say that we’re allowed to do that, and I’m all for it. But everything I say is subject to the laws being 100% adhered to.”

Trump also said he was willing to take the fight to court, if need be. 

“Sure,” he added. “Why not?”